Teacher Autonomy: A Multifaceted Approach for the New Millennium ...

There is a place for teacher autonomy in today’s public school climate, and Shulman’s work made this clear. It is the advantageous utilization of teacher autonomy that Shulman argued will allow teachers to make positive decisions for their students within the confines of a constraining bureaucracy.

Now that we have a broader understanding of the deeper complexities associated with dangerous and advantageous conceptualizations of teacher autonomy, I would like to inform the reader about the effects of testing on teacher autonomy. The next section of the literature review explores how testing affects teachers’ control over curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment; and how working within different testing contexts affects autonomy.

The Effect of High-Stakes Accountability Systems on Teaching

This section explores teachers’ feelings about standardized tests in relation to their perceptions of autonomy. Considering the research questions’ focus on the effects of high-stakes testing on teachers’ perceptions of autonomy, it behooves us to look more deeply at the influence of testing on teacher autonomy. Rex and Nelson (2004) conducted an ethnographic study of Michigan teachers with a focus on how they responded to the high pressure of test-score accountability. Specifically, they wanted to understand why teachers, even when supported with professional development and exhibiting a desire to prepare their students for the test, often fell short of their goals.

Using teacher self-reports and classroom observation, the authors of this study found that teachers’ personal beliefs and feelings dominated the pressures they felt as a result of external accountability (Rex & Nelson, 2004). In other words, regardless of the presence of a high-stakes test, Rex and Nelson found that teachers taught their students based on what they felt was best for their students’ learning.